“It’s going to be difficult … that’s for sure,” DeLay said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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DeLay said that the charges will "especially" hurt Perry with potential donors, who “may wait until this is over to give him the money” or they “may go somewhere else, another candidate.”

Perry, who is openly weighing another run for president in 2016, was indicted earlier this month on two felony counts for allegedly abusing his veto power to force the resignation of a Democratic prosecutor.

He has since surrendered to authorities and made the fallout from the indictments, including his mug shot, into fundraising tools.

DeLay said that much would depend on the next 30 to 60 days, saying a judge could throw out the charges as “frivolous, which it is.”

He said special prosecutor Michael McCrum had “twisted” the law to make the charges against Perry and that the case had “partisan politics and criminalization of politics written all over it.”

DeLay said it was “way to early to tell” who the Republican nominee in 2016 would be, highlighting potential candidates like Governors Scott Walker (Wis.) and Bobby Jindal (La.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.)

“What the Democrats have to be worried about is bringing up a Clinton after all these years,” he said in reference to Hillary Clinton

Asked if he would support Perry, or Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another prospective presidential candidate, DeLay laughed.

“I’m not going there yet … not at all,” he said.

DeLay, who is still in the midst of his own legal battle after being indicted in 2005 on a conspiracy charge stemming from a long-running campaign finance investigation, also demurred over if he would run for office again one day.

“I don’t know what the Lord has for me,” he said. “I just take it one day at a time.”